Why are European children's TV characters so terrifying?
This year, German television celebrates a mightily important anniversary. 25 years ago, a depressed loaf of bread waltzed on to children's TV screens and terrified the entire population.
Bernd das Brot, or 'Bernd the bread' is a beloved mainstay of German children's television. The sour-faced sourdough first aired on the Kika channel in 2000 alongside more traditionally optimistic characters such as Chili the Sheep and Briegel the Bush.
The toast of children's television, Bernd das Brot was first baked up by Tommy Krappweis and Norman Cöster. Georg Graf von Westphalen then designed Bernd as a loaf of white bread with a permanent scowl.
With his petulant pessimism and signature expression 'Mist!' (crap), it wasn't long before German TV programmers had some sense and moved Bernd from the daytime to the evening slot on the children's channel. There, stoners could fully appreciate their kindred spirit and Bernd das Brot as the crusty king he always was.
As we commemorate 25 years of German TV's strangest attempt at children's entertainment, we thought it would be a good opportunity to look through the annals of European TV to find other examples of the continent's greatest tradition: terrifying children.
United Kingdom: Mr Blobby
No list of horrifying children's characters would be complete without the UK's gallant entry into the crowded field. It was 1992 and the coke-fuelled era of TV production was clearly still in full swing when Mr Blobby came hurtling into our lives.
The huge costume of a bulbous pink man with jiggling eyes and an electronically altered voice that only screams 'blobby' with the vicious intensity of a thousand death hounds, Mr Blobby's entire shtick was terror.
Introduced on the show 'Noel's House Party' as a gag where they pretended Mr Blobby was an established TV character in front of unknowing celebs, Mr Blobby somehow hypnotised a nation into making him a permanent fixture, appearing on British screens regularly ever since.
Blundering into rooms, chaos always followed Mr Blobby. The grotesque humanoid creature would destroy all in its path. A symbol of 90s decadence in Britain, it's hard to say what summarises Mr Blobby or the era more: that he reportedly reduced a small girl to tears after throwing her birthday cake on the floor causing her father to assault him; or that he had a number one UK Christmas single.
The Netherlands: Karbonkel
As mentioned above, the 90s were a weird time. Not willing to be outdone by the Brits for televisual oddities, in 1994 Dutch TV programmers signed off on the show 'Ik Mik Loreland'.
On the surface, it seems like a sweet idea. Aimed at primary school children, the show was designed to encourage and support them in learning to read and spell correctly. What could be more wholesome than learning to love literacy?
For all that the Dutch are praised for their rationality, this is also a nation that was put on the map for their laissez-faire approach to weed and hookers. Naturally then, the best way to teach children under 10 how to read is through the ever present threat of Karbonkel, a one-eyed monster that can't read or write and tries to stop children from doing so too.
Karbonkel immediately terrified children but production was already too far along by the time the studio realised for them to change course. The studio ended up touring Karbonkel around schools to prove to children this shape-shifting monster was just a puppet. Despite traumatising a generation, 'Ik Mik Loreland' has endured as an icon of Dutch culture.
Czechia: Raťafák Plachta
Guillermo del Toro ain't got nothing on the Czechs. Long before he created the terrifying Pale Man character with eyes in his hands for Pan's Labyrinth, Czech TV aired the Slovak show 'Slniečko' from 1979 to 1989.
'Slniečko' translates as 'little sunshine' and the puppet show's main character was a hand puppet of the sun. But while the main mascot was largely adorable, it isn't the show's legacy. Instead, that honour falls on Raťafák Plachta, another puppet created to parody politicians – yes, it's a children's show.
Raťafák Plachta or 'big nose blanket' was a huge ungainly puppet that needed to be manned by two operators draped in the blanket costume. Walking around like a prop from a cheap horror film, Raťafák Plachta needs to be killed with fire.
Sadly, almost all 500 episodes of 'Slniečko' are lost. It's only due to a parody video which surfaced online of someone using the original costume that many 1980s Slovak-Czech kids were reminded of the beast haunting their nightmares.
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